Catch Them Young!
November 10th, 2006 •
I was hanging out at the airport tonight waiting to meet some friends, sat outside transient parking listening to the traffic on my radio. After a while a car pulled up and a lady got out with a young boy, obviously thrilled to be watching the planes. I had time to kill and I thought why not offer the kid a look inside one of the club planes – I had the key with me, though not my flight bag. So I went out, told the lady I was a pilot and would her son like to sit inside a plane?
Well, the kid needed no prompting and after what was probably a weighing-up of the likelihood of my being a child molester (or more likely the realisation that she could take me if it came to it!). I picked a 172, opened it up and told the kid to sit in the left seat while I got in the right. I explained some of the controls but it was going past him as he looked around. I flicked the master switch and let him put the flaps down. Pretty soon his mother said it was time to go, the kid thanked me with a big smile and off they went. I felt a smile myself from having given the boy something to remember for a while.
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